Polyurethane foams derived from the reaction between polyisocyanates and reactive polymers are widely used in applications ranging from insulation and manufacture of furniture, mattresses, consumer goods, construction materials, automotive components and the like.
The cost of polyurethane foams has increased dramatically in recent years due to increases in the cost of petroleum-based feedstocks and the energy used to make them. At the same time, the market demands are increasing for high performing materials that are tough, have long service lifetimes and improved sustainability profiles. Unfortunately, the current solutions to these problems tend to increase one property at the expense of others.
For example, to make stronger foams, the density of the foam is typically increased leading to a greater use of materials and wasted energy required to transport materials. This is exacerbated in transportation applications where the foam will be part of a vehicle since the heavier foam will take a financial and environmental toll through increased fuel usage throughout its service lifetime. As such, compromises are often made wherein a less durable or lower performing foam is selected based on cost or weight considerations.
Similarly, efforts to make foam compositions more sustainable by addition of biobased feedstocks have had mixed results. Incorporation of soy or corn-based feedstocks in polyurethane foam formulations often leads to sacrifice of desirable properties and requires other changes to the formulations to achieve acceptable performance—even with these concessions, it has been difficult to incorporate more than about 10% of the biobased material. The true sustainability of this approach is also questionable especially when viewed as a whole, including the land and water use and petroleum resources required to produce biobased feedstocks—particularly if additional effort or petroleum-based additives are required to compensate for negative effects these materials have on the foam formulations.
It has previously been reported that polyurethane foams can be formulated from polyols manufactured from CO2 (see for example, co-owned patent applications WO 2010/028362 and PCT/US12/047967). These foam compositions have improved carbon footprints since up to 50% of the polyol's mass can be derived from waste CO2 that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere. In addition to sequestering a potential greenhouse gas, this strategy allows the amount of fossil-fuel derived feedstock utilized in manufacturing the polyol to be cut by up to 50%.
Nonetheless, there remains a need for polyurethane foam compositions with improved performance characteristics, and in particular for formulations that have superior strength and durability with equal or lesser weight than present materials.